Heroman
by TheSlowestManAlive
Summary: Backstory of a new Folk Hero, Heroman


_**Heroman**_

"Sorry sir, but we don't have that available here, would there be anything else I can help you with?" said the attractive female clerk of a modest family owned inn.

"The FUCK you mean you don't have this here? What kind of trash establishment is this?!" the group of burly adventurers infamous for their assholery exclaimed.

"I'm truly sorry for the inconvenience, is there anything else I can help you with today?" she said apologetically.

The group of four men looked at each other and snickered with a smile on their face that clearly meant they were up to no good.

"Yeah there is actually, how bout you give us some room service instead if you know what I mean." said the man who seemed to be the leader of the group as he forcefully grabbed the clerk.

The clerk wanted to yell out for a cry of help but quickly closed her mouth as a knife was stealthily pressed against her neck. Her eyes filled with terror were desperately seeking help of other customers in the inn. However, in her misfortune, it was midafternoon past lunchtime and everyone was out doing their jobs.

She thought she was generally used at ill mannered customers since she's been working there for a while, helping her family. However, she only realized that was because there was always at least one other person in the inn. Inn workers were people who provided housing, food, jobs, and information. It is an unwritten rule that they were to be respected as they were pretty much the very reason adventuring could be considered a viable way of living. When things get too rough, other adventurer's would always step in solely due to how necessary inn workers are. However, when there was no customers it wasn't like she was alone still. Her luck would just so have it that her mom and grandfather, who usually helped out, were also out. Her mom got a fever just last week and was home resting.

As she was forcefully being carried away into one of the inn's rooms, she desperately prayed for her grandfather to appear. Her grandfather is actually a retired hero who was well known on the continent. The weird part is, he sort of disappeared for many years and only recently came back a couple years ago to the village to help take care of her and her mother. Apparently, after he decided his adventuring days were over, he settled in some remote village that almost nobody knows about in order to live a quiet life. He only decided to come back to help with the inn because he somehow heard news that his son-in-law died. Not wanting to have the now widowed and fatherless women behind, he decided to travel from his village to here to take care of them. This caused quite the uproar when he returned, as he was quite the famous hero. Unfortunately, he didn't exactly care about wealth when he went into a hiding and couldn't really help the girls besides being another worker at the inn they owned. Despite his age and inactivity, he still had the skill of a veteran. As such, it was common for him to help out on subjugation type quests near the town when the local adventurers had some difficulty; today was one of those days.

The closer they got towards the door to the room, the less she struggled and began to accept her fate. Once they made it right at the door, she stopped struggling completely. She lifelessly watched as the guy carrying her started to turn the door knob.

"Finally stopped resisting huh? Don't worry, we're gonna ha-"

"YO GRAMPS YOU IN HERE?!1111"

Surprised, everyone turned to see who was it who loudly yelled without any regard for others peace, not that there was any. What they first saw was a lightly tanned human of average build, a couple inches shy of being 6 feet, and appeared to be wearing boots, dirty gray pants, chainmail with a brown long sleeve underneath, no helmet, longsword sheathed on his belt, with a shield and spear strapped on his back. He turned his head surveying for people since he realized it was empty at the main area he was at. Thankfully for the girl, the thugs decided to go to a room that was down the hallway and not upstairs, this allowed both parties to get a good look at each other. Upon seeing his face, they noticed he had black hair with brown eyes and a genuine smile that didn't read the situation and was only happy that he wasn't the only one there.

"Hey you guys seen some old looking guy who's actually pretty strong? He should be working here."

While the strange man was walking towards them, one of the thugs stepped in between the man and the rest of the group and said.

"Na, you should come back later when more people are here."

"Hmm, ok, thanks anyways."

The strange man then started to turn around and walk away.

The thugs were slightly baffled and stunned at how the man didn't question the girl with disheveled hair and slightly torn clothes was being carried over the shoulder. Even the girl herself was baffled that the guy just started walking away that she didn't scream for help. As she watched the back of the strange man slowly going away, she quickly realized her mistake before it was too and yelled.

"WAIT WTF HELP ME!"

Immediately, one of the thugs pulled out a dagger and started charging at the man. At the same time, the man confusedly turned his head to see exactly why someone just loudly screamed for help, but didn't stop his stride. In those few seconds he turned his head, he managed to see that the girl was struggling to get out of the guys grasp and that someone was about 3 inches from stabbing him. He also managed to trip. On what? Who knows.

This made the assailant miss the point he was aiming for and only lightly grazed the chainmail his target was wearing. He also tripped over the man's body.

"?!1?11?1111?1!?" was the expression the man's face made when he immediately got up.

"You still don't get it?! They're trying to RAPE me! Help me you idiot!"

"FUUUU-" said the man as he started moving back when he noticed the other two thugs who weren't holding the girl were readying their weapons; you know, until he tripped again. What did he trip on this time? He completely forgot about the thug who almost stabbed him, even though it was only moments ago, and tripped on the thug who was still in the process of getting up. The body weight of the man made the thug's face go straight face down onto the wooden floor, rendering him unconscious. The man managed to do a fancy backwards roll to get back on his feet after tripping which made it seem like the whole scenario was planned. It wasn't.

The other two thugs upon seeing this scene took the encounter with this guy seriously and readied their stances. The man hurriedly took out his shield and sword in response.

After the two parties stared each other down for a couple seconds and created a tense atmosphere, the man suddenly made a face as if he remembered something and exclaimed.

"Wouldn't want to trip on this guy again!" The man then grabbed the unconscious thug and tossed him to the main area. The man walked back into the hallway, "What were we doing again? Oh shit right." and readied his weapons again. This made the thugs realize the last incident was indeed, an accident.

The two thugs had their concentration shattered because the guy they were trying to kill was clearly not being serious and looked at each other wondering what they should do. That is until, the leader behind them, shouted "Kill him already you fools!"

Snapped back into reality, the two thugs began to dash towards the man to take him down in a 2 vs 1 situation. However, they fucking tripped too. Why? Cause its a hallway and you're not supposed to run in hallways. The hallway was too cramped for the two grown men to comfortably run side by side and one of them fell, causing the other to fall too. The man used this opportunity to start stomping on one of their heads before they got up. He managed to get a couple good stomps in before the one he wasn't stomping on got up. Enough times that it resulted in it becoming a one vs one situation and they started dueling. Luckily enough, the man's preferred fighting style was dueling, which meant that he was slowly but surely gaining the upperhand.

"Yeah beat their asses up!" the girl cheered as she noticed that things were turning out rather favorably for her rescuer(we'll refer to him as hero for now). Her mouth then got covered by the thug carrying her.

"Quiet you! Hey! You take care of that guy for a bit! I'll help you out as soon as i'm done having some 'fun' here." The girl then remembered the kind of situation she was in and started struggling once more as she was being taken in the room. In full panic mode, she struggled as hard as she could in order to buy precious minutes of time for the hero to come save her.

You know how sometimes people become friends after fighting for a bit? Gaining respect for each others skills or something like that? Well, in those couple minutes that was exactly what happened between the two fighting outside.

"Aye you're pretty good at this!" complemented the hero towards the thug fighting him

"Hmph, i'm the one losing here if you can say shit like that."

"Heh, unfortunately for you it's only because I have the upperhand in equipment it seems!" which was true; compared to armored man, the thug only had light leather armor, which while would make him the more agile of the two, didn't help that much in the confined space of the hallway.

"It would appear so"

"Whats up with that anyway? That leader dude looks waaay more decked out than the rest of you guys!"

"Eh, he says something about being the leader gives him priority on equipment that I don't really argue with"

"What? How'd you guys decide whom the leader is anyway? Did you guys fight to see who was the strongest or what?"

"I don't know, I was the most recent member to join and didn't really ca-"

"And like! Who goes rapes a girl in a public inn?"

"..."

"Seriously! Not only that he decides to go do that instead of helping out his unconscious buddies!"

"Save that for la-"

"And you! We're seriously fighting for our lives here yknow? Yet, he tells you to fight a clearly losing battle so he can go have fun himself! What is this shit?! Dudes an asshole!"

"ENOU- !" This time, the thug didn't get interrupted by words, but the shock of a blade being right next to his neck. The hero intentionally stopped, sparing the thug's life. The hero withdrew his sword and rested it on back of his shoulder. He then showed a bright smile with no signs of animosity to the thug and asked.

"How bout you help me take down the asshole instead?"

"..."

"The punishment for you after this ordeal is over would be less severe too yknow"

"Fuck it, lets do this." The hero actually somehow managed to convince this thug(we call him traitor now, maybe convert would be a better word? Na lets stick with traitor) to change sides and become his ally.

After seeing the door open, the girl who still managed to struggle for time anxiously looked to see who would be walking through the door. As soon as she saw the traitor walk in, her heart sank and so did her will to continue on struggling.

"Oh you actually managed to win? Thats good, she just stopped struggling too. We can get the party started! Me first though ok?" The leader grinned while he started unbuckling. Before he was able to get the buckle off though, he felt the killing intent of his 'comrade' and just narrowly dodged the attack.

"Now!" exclaimed the traitor. Just then, the hero who the leader thought was dealt with dashed through the door and was about to slash him. While an asshole, he truly was quite skilled and was indeed chosen as leader due to winning a fighting contest between the older members before the traitor joined. That being said, he was able to quickly grab the weapon, a spear, he left lying against the wall and parry the attack the hero was about to deliver just in time. However, the hero and traitor were now between the girl and leader. The hero shouted to the girl.

"Cover yourself up and get to somewhere safe we got this from here!"

She snapped back to reality, nodded, and went to a place she thought was safe. It was the corner of the same room. Dumb bitch. Like, it wasn't even the corner farthest away from the leader smh.

"Hope you know that your lives end here" the leader threatened.

"Fuck you i'm tired of your shit!" the traitor yelled as he was running towards the leader

"Wait!" the hero tried to warn the traitor but it was too late, he didn't notice silk garment that was on the floor and tripped. Fucking damn it. The leader then proceeded to nonchalantly stab the traitor who just fell.

"This is what you get for betraying me." He faced towards the hero. "How about we take this in a place with more room?"

"Fine, lets go." The two proceeded to walk out the door and go to the main area. Just as the hero was about to step out the door he turned to the girl and said. "That doesn't look to be fatal, patch him up for me will yeah?" referring to the traitor on the floor. The girl was impressed with how calm the hero sounded saying this, almost as if he knew everything was going to be alright. She nodded and proceeded to tend to the traitor. Who knew, guess staying in the same room was a good idea after all.

At the main area.

"Don't decide to run now" the hero taunted while smiling

"Too committed now, i'm going to at least kill you before news spreads"

"We'll see about that"

They proceeded to clash for a bit, with the leader gaining a significant advantage over time. Eventually, it got to a point where they were just circling each other, the hero visibly tired while the leader just waiting for the opportunity to finish it.

"Well, this sucks" the hero said under his breath. Although the situation was bad, his eyes still had life in them, showing that he was willing to fight til the very end. It was almost commendable. Unfortunately for him, he heard an unfamiliar voice come from behind him.

"Well its about to get a whole lot worse my friend."

Immediately, the hero turned around only to get slashed in the arm the chainmail didn't cover. The one who said that was the guy he KO'd via head stomping and right behind him was the first thug who tried to stab him but got KO'd via accidental trip smash, it would appear they woke up from their unconscious state. Barely able to get a grip on his sword due to his slashed arm, the hero found himself in a very unfavorable situation. The three thugs were able to corner the hero and made his back go up against the wall. They proceeded to start attacking him, unfortunately for the hero, there was no tripping this time. While he was able to fend off many attacks with his shield and the chainmail did well in mitigating damage, he was very quickly approaching death. In a desperate attempt, he was able to swing his shield in a wide arc which interrupted the attacks for just a moment and used that moment to forcefully roll through them out of the corner. He only managed to limp a couple feet before eventually falling on the floor again. The three surrounded him and began laughing as they were deciding who was going to deliver the final blow. The hero closed his eyes with a slight smile on his face and jokingly complained with a tone not fit for the situation.

"This is totally unfair, someone switch out with me alreadyyyyy :("

Annoyed by the hero's attitude towards the situation, the leader raised his spear high and was about to finish the job.

"I'll take it from here kid" Mid thrust into his attack, the leader got dropped kicked to the other side of the room, crashing into the table.

"GRAMPS!" the other two thugs tried attacking the old man who suddenly popped out of nowhere but was quickly dealt with. The old man sidestepped one of the attacks, disarmed the dagger from the thug, and while disarming, was able to break the thug's arm. He sidestepped the other thug's attack and kicked the thug's knee with such force and precision that it bent the other way. With those few seconds, the two thugs were now on the floor writhing in pain. However, the leader of the bunch got back up and was clearly not happy.

"Grandpa!" Hearing the commotion, the girl went outside to see what was happening and saw her grandfather.

"Mind telling me whats going on here dear?"

"Those thugs tried to rape me since nobody was here! But then that guy saved me!"

"Ah, I see, I thought it was just a normal brawl that went too far, but now i'm a bit mad, actually, really mad."

"Shut up old man! You fucked with the wr-" the old man threw the dagger he disarmed earlier towards the leader which pierced through his armor like nothing and sent him backwards again. He's not getting up from that anytime soon.

The old man looked around the room to make sure there was nobody else he had to deal with (traitor was sleeping in the room after getting patched up but he didn't need to know that) and looked back down to the hero, who was still smiling despite being a bloody mess on the floor.

"It's been a while hasn't it? Hiroh."

"Heroman."

"...?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"I go by Heroman these days."

"Are you fu-"

"Grandpa! Save the conversation for later! He's bleeding!" the worried girl exclaimed as she interrupted Heroman's and the old man's reunion.

"Naaaa he's fine! Right Hiroh?...man"

"I mean...I wouldn't say no to being patched up a bit..."

"Pssh...you aren't the greatest fighter out there but you always have the grit to keep going! Thats what I like about ya!"

Heroman lost his trademark smiling and signed as he recalled the meaning of those painful words. It turns out, the village the old man settled in for a bit before coming back to take care of his granddaughter and the village Heroman was born in were the same village. What makes this village unique however, was that it was a village that consisted entirely of retired heroes. Not just a normal veteran adventurer, but those who achieved enough to be considered heroes. Well, not all of the residents were heroes, many were spouses and children of said heroes, but its not wrong to say that everyone was at least closely affiliated with a hero. Someway or another, everyone who earns the title "hero" gets an offer to come live in this village if they wish to have a quiet peaceful life instead of the high-profile life heroes usually get. Since the residents were heroes of many different places, they were able to get the cooperation of almost every government body to keep this place a secret.

Heroman, like many others in his village, was born from two heroes who adventured together. Pretty much every child inherited an innate talent in combat via the martial arts or magic from their parents. Needless to say, Heroman was one of the few who did not possess innate talent in the village... actually he was probably the only one. In fact, one could say he was a very poor fighter.(no signs of being able to do magic) It was only thanks to the fact his instructors were literally the best in the world in their respective field that he was able to be considered a fighter at all. For the record, despite having a dueling fighting style, he never once won a match in his village, including mages restricted from using magic. Despite this, everyone loved him and didn't make him feel bad. While a bit spontaneous and reckless, he was definitely conscientious of others, had a moral conduct befitting a village of heroes, and affable. If blissful ignorance was real, he'd be the epitome of it. His ignorance of his inadequacy coupled with optimistic outlook on life allowed him to keep training even after the rest, the talented, wanted to quit. This led him to become one of the favorites among the instructors, including this old man literally looking down on him.

"Grandpa please! He's my hero! Treat him well!"

"Yeah! You tell him!"

"More importantly, its bad for business if customers walk in on this sort of scene"

"...more importantly?"

"Hmm, I suppose you make a point there dear, you go take care of this boy here while I take these thugs to the authorities."

As the girl was patching Heroman up, she noticed that he was in an overly good mood for someone who almost died. She also noticed that he had a very distinct birthmark shaped as two triangles on his left hand. ( but vertical/rotated 90 degrees)

"You seem to be in a good mood despite being wrapped up like a mummy." she chuckled

"Oh yeah, its kinda embarrassing to say but the reason i'm in a good mood is because you were the first person to ever call me a hero."

"Really? You definitely look like you could be a hero, you saved me afterall!"

"You don't have to lie yknow...but thats the goal, to be a hero."

"I'm not lying! You really did save me you know, just know that you'll at least be my hero."

"Thanks, that means a lot, really"

The door to the room Heroman was being treated at was abruptly swung open by the old man entering the room.

"Don't like the feel of the mood going on in here! I'll take it from here!"

"Grandpa! It wasn't li-" The girl got interrupted by Heroman

"Yo gramps! I actually have something to talk to you about!"

The girl then recalled the first thing Heroman yelled when he entered the inn and realized that Heroman indeed had some business with her grandfather.

"Oh right, alright i'll be on my way then"

"Yeah, thanks a bunch for patching me up!" he said and waved back at the girl leaving the room, slightly wincing at the pain his wounds left.

"Before we have that talk how bout you put on some more of your clothes back on." Heroman was only wearing his boxers at this point.

"Sure, give me a bit." He started putting back some loaned attire since his normal stuff was getting cleaned and being repaired by the girl. The one that didn't need cleaning however was the pair of fingerless gloves he had. They were pure black and were clearly well made, probably the highest quality thing he owned. On the top part of the gloves was a symbol that had the two triangles that looked almost identical to Heroman's birthmark. As he was putting on the gloves the old man asked.

"Ah, so your folks gave you those huh? Speaking of which, how are they doing now these days?"

"Yeah, they said it'll come in handy someday, don't know how though. But yeah, they're fine, just doing the same things as usual."

"Thats good to hear, heh, you'll figure it out eventually." the old man chuckled

"What? Thats all you're gonna give me? Not even a hint?"

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry about it too much kid. How bout you tell me what you came here for?"

"Oh right! Before I left to explore my dad gave me a quest to do!"

"A quest eh?"

"Yeah hold on!" Heroman quickly went through his backpack and pulled out something to present to the old man.

"Well i'll be, been a while since I last saw that." It was a forest green colored cloak that had a simple yet elegant embroidery with a maroon colored thread. It was a bit heavier than most cloaks, but you could tell just by the feel that it was a sturdy cloak that would survive through the harshest of conditions.

"Yeah! Dad told me to go deliver some items while I was out exploring and making a name for myself!"

"Hah! So you're essentially just a delivery boy right now!"

"... maybe"

"Hahaha, this is too much, how'd you find me anyway?"

"Since Dad didn't exactly tell me where these people all were I was pretty stumped on where to go. Then I remembered you saying that you were leaving the village to go here for family reasons so I made this my first stop!"

"First stop? Its quite a distance from there to here boy, don't see a companion of yours either. Don't tell me you came here alone?"

"I did...sorta?"

"Sorta?" the old man was shocked, cause traveling to here alone from the village was quite the task, being a secluded village meant no subjugation quests which made the area around the village be filled of strong creatures. Since the village had strong heroes already they didn't try to control the breeding of the monsters either since they'd be easily dealt with if they came too close. Besides strong creatures, bandit gangs and the like would readily jump on a lone adventurer travelling on foot.

Turns out, Heroman did in fact encounter all the misfortunes that come with travelling alone. While taking a piss he got jumped on by a pack of creatures, while taking a dump he had an arrow just barely miss him and land right next to his feet, and many other misfortunes such as being too scared to sleep at night. How did he survive all this? Well it turns out that Heroman was an unnaturally lucky person. All these times, a party would show up and save Heroman, and with his affable personality, was able to journey with the party part of the way until they had to split up. However during these journeys, he learned of a fear he didn't think he'd have. It wasn't much of a phobia as much as something everyone would usually fear. This had a really big impact on him however. After saying goodbye to a party, he went to an inn a couple months later and heard that said party had died during their subjugation quest. Knowing that his saviors, his own heroes, that he spent a decent amount of time with had died soon after they said goodbye left him a pain in his heart that would not go away. The fear of saying goodbye and never seeing them again was his fear. He thought he was prepared for it as he left for his journey, but when he actually experienced it, he wasn't. It took him a couple months to leave the inn he heard the news from and left only after running out of money to keep staying. Fortunately and unfortunately the hardship of surviving on your own with no money made him so focused on his own survival that the thoughts of his dead party friends were put on the backseat. This allowed Heroman to go back to his usual personality, though in the back of his mind he still fears something like that happening again. After a bit more stories, which were mainly about how lucky he was, he finally reached the point of his story to where he is now, at the inn.

"You always did have the devil's luck, you never won skill based competitions but was definitely winning a good amount of the luck based ones." the old man jokingly jabbed

"Yeah whatever gramps! Why don't take this cloak already? I've been holding it out for a while now."

"Hmm, na, you can keep it."

"What? Don't be silly, even if you don't want it, it'll sell for a high price! I remember you saying you wish you had money to help your daughter and granddaughter here before you left."

"What?! Our business is doing perfectly fine! We don't need no pity money."

"You sure?"

"Yeah! Think of it as payment for saving my granddaughter when I couldn't. She's worth more than any old cloak; plus from the stories you told me it looks like you'll need it!"

"Naa, I survived this long without wearing it even once even though it was accessible to me the whole time yknow? I'd feel too guilty accepting something like this anyway."

"Gah you're so stubborn! Just take it already!" the old man said as he slammed the door getting out the room.

"...Thanks, I appreciate it. "

It week has passed since the events and Heroman's wounds have become manageable. He puts his old clothes on and equipment, including the cloak. He opens the doors of the inn and prepares to head out back exploring.

"Leaving without saying even goodbye?" the girl depressingly said right before he stepped out.

"I don't really like that word, how about you tell me that you'll see me again instead?"

"You're a weird one aren't you? I don't dislike that though. Fine then. I'll say it if you promise me that you'll actually come back again."

"I'll definitely come back again."

"Ok then, see you again!" the girl yelled as she merrily waved goodbye.

"That cloak suits you pretty well" said the old man who noticed Heroman leaving while doing some work right outside the inn.

"Yeah, thanks again gramps, i'll take good care of it!"

"You better! Since I changed my mind! I'm only letting you BORROW the cloak you hear?! Meaning you gotta come back and return it to me once you found something better!"

"Heh, of course!"

"Good luck boy, hope you find yourself some good company."

"Yeah, see you soon"

"See you soon."


End file.
